to make him wriggle at the knowledge that I had inherited his guilty secret. Ever since our marriage, Lady Pryde had treated me like a second-class citizen; she had not let pass any opportunity to stress her family's social superiority. There was no doubt that Edward was better bred than me, yet even Northern Dancer has sired the occasional dud.
Not knowing where to begin, I decided to start at the end, at the scene of the crime. Before driving out to Melksham I went over to the cottage to collect the mail and generally give it a look over. I was interested to see if the police had disturbed or removed anything during their search. If they had, there was, alas, no longer any Mrs Parsons to clean up. She had felt it only decent to hand in her notice after the discovery of Edward's body.
To my astonishment the place was a complete shambles. Tables were upturned, books strewn all over the floor and the contents of the drawers had been hurled around the sitting and dining rooms. It was the same story upstairs. I couldn't believe the police could have behaved like this and immediately rang Inspector Wilkinson to complain. He was as surprised as I was.
'Mrs Pryde,' he said, this time putting on his most reassuring voice, 'I can guarantee that has nothing to do with us. Last week we undertook a careful and orderly search of your premises and in fact removed certain material, but only because we felt it to be relevant to our enquiries. I can assure you that my officers left the premises in the same good order that they found them. I know because I was there to supervise them. It looks like somebody else has paid you an unauthorised visit. Have you been staying there at all recently?'
I told him that Freddie and I were still living with friends.
'I'm afraid,' he went on, 'that this kind of thing does happen. We live in a sick society and there are a few nasty individuals around who take advantage of other people's misfortune to do a bit of petty thieving. Do you know if anything's missing?'
'Not that I've noticed so far.'
'I'll send a couple of men over straight away.'
'All right. Can you leave it for a short while? Let me just go through everything first and see what's gone.'
'If you insist, but please don't go putting your fingerprints everywhere, Mrs Pryde.'
Whoever had burgled the place had clearly not been a petty thief. The television and video were untouched, as was the silver cutlery, a family heirloom in the drawer of the sideboard. What had occurred was a systematic, although judging by the chaos, increasingly frenzied, search and there was nothing to indicate if it had been successful or not. Who, why and what, I wondered? I thought back to that Friday when Freddie discovered the diary and Edward's smug expression as he bragged about his investors. He had boasted of how he had kept a photocopy of the incriminating letter which his father had received from Lorenz. Perhaps that wasn't the only piece of evidence in his possession. With Edward dead, could it be that one of the investors had now come to reclaim the proof of his own indiscretion? I decided it was worth a fresh look around the cottage just in case the searcher had left empty- handed. There was no need to look in the obvious places, as the intruder had done that already.
I plonked myself down in Edward's favourite chair by the fire and surveyed the room. Behind the pictures or inside the photograph frames would be too simple. I also discounted the grandfather clock in the corner. The stuffed owl on the table by the window looked more promising. I was convinced it was winking at me. 'That's it!' I said aloud, congratulating myself on my powers of detection.
Edward had always hated that bird. I had picked it up one day in a junk shop for a fiver and brought it home in great triumph. He had taken one look and kindly said it reminded him of my mother. I rushed over and took it out of its glass box. There was no sign of the skin being broken, although I could well imagine the pleasure he would have taken in stuffing documents up its backside. I ran to the kitchen and took a knife from the drawer, now certain that I had discovered his cache. Asking my mother for forgiveness, I unceremoniously tore open the old bird's chest and back and stuck my hands inside, but all I got was stuffing, a sentiment echoed by the look of disdain in the owl's eyes. Feeling a complete idiot, I returned the mutilated creature to its former resting place.
As I did so, I caught sight of a photograph of Edward on the mantelpiece, taken when he was out shooting on his uncle's estate. The gun held proudly in his right hand was his most treasured possession. His father had brought him up on the saying, 'You should lend your wife before your gun', and that was exactly how Edward felt about it. He was endlessly cleaning and oiling it; I had once even caught him taking it to pieces. I remembered how angry he had been at the time. I ran upstairs to the spare room and looked under the wardrobe. The brown oblong case with his initials on it was still there. I pulled it out only to find that the lock had already been forced, although as far I could tell nothing had been removed. I looked down both barrels to no avail, and then studied the butt. Five minutes later I had removed the four screws which fixed the end-plate to the stock of the gun. I removed the plate and extracted its unorthodox contents. Replacing the screws, I returned the gun to its case and went downstairs with my discovery: a small bundle tied with a red ribbon. I slipped it off, my fingers trembling in anticipation. I was not disappointed.
There were four items: the first was a handwritten letter addressed to Gerald Pryde Q.C. from Peter Lorenz, in which he referred to an enclosure of a cheque for ten thousand pounds 'as per our agreement'; the second was a single sheet of scruffy paper, undated, containing a signed confession by Michael Corcoran that he had stolen the wages from Tom Radcliffe. No wonder Edward was so confident of his abiding loyalty. The third was a handwritten demand from George Musgrave for the settlement of one hundred thousand pounds' worth of losing wagers, each one carefully itemised on the rear. Presumably Edward thought he could use Musgrave's admission of illegal bookmaking as a bartering weapon. But the last enclosure was the most thrilling: it was a colour photograph with remarkable definition, considering its unusual subject matter. I couldn't resist a smile. Sir Arthur Drewe was dressed in his own racing silks and riding what looked like a very strong finish. The only problem was that his mount was a buxom brunette called Annabel Strong. She held a permit to train horses owned by herself and members of her family. I had no idea that Sir Arthur was her retained jockey.
I wondered how on earth Edward had obtained the photograph. All in all a very exciting find; my only disappointment was the absence of anything positive on Brennan. I suppose he would hardly have been foolish enough to commit the existence of a cash retainer to writing.
I waited for the police to arrive and then headed for Melksham and the chalk pit. Motoring across the rolling Wiltshire Downs it was hard to believe that my journey had such a ghoulish purpose. The old chalk pit had been abandoned over twenty years previously and apart from the occasional courting couple or gang of hell's angels on their motor bikes, it was a lonely and desolate spot. When I had worked on the Newbury paper 1 had once written a piece on the pit as part of a series on our neglected countryside. My editor had described it as a load of sentimental bilge, full of clichйs and tired metaphors. Now the pit had earned itself a place in history and would no doubt become a tourist attraction in the not too distant future.
I turned off the B216 and drove along a narrow single-track road. After three miles I parked the car on the side of the road and walked the fifty yards or so back to the old track which led up to the pit. It was clear from the tyre marks that there had been plenty of recent traffic. Today, however, it was deserted again. Ten minutes later I reached the top of the pit itself, and below me I could see an area about twenty feet square which had been roped off. It could be reached by the worn drive that the lorries once used to collect the chalk. I walked down and inspected the site where no doubt the car had been found. There were scorch marks on the ground, but apart from that there was nothing to indicate that it had been the scene of such a gruesome crime.
I strolled on and into the heart of the pit. I didn't expect to find anything as the police had no doubt carried out a thorough search of the area for evidence. It was eerie and depressing and I tried to picture the scene on the night of the murder, Edward's body curled up in the boot as paraffin or petrol was poured over it and then the car set on fire. I wondered whether the murderer or murderers had stood by and watched the blaze or whether they had set off straight away in a waiting car. Out here, miles from anywhere, they had very little chance of being disturbed. A cold and ruthless murder, an act wholly beyond Tom Radcliffe.
I was beginning to feel nervous hanging around there, so I returned to my car and drove to Oxford in the hope of gaining an audience with my father-in-law. The courts were on vacation and I knew that he was likely to be in his study writing up judgements to be delivered at the beginning of the next legal term. I took the precaution en route of phoning up to see whether Lady Pryde was at home. If she had been I would have aborted my mission for the present. I had no desire to come face to face with that most formidable of battle axes; Doris, the housekeeper, didn't recognise my voice and said that Madam was away until late evening. I had hoped as much, remembering that Friday was usually her bridge afternoon in Abingdon.
Lord Pryde was positively displeased to see me. I could sense his legal mind evaluating whether he ought to refuse to talk to me and kick me out. In the end it was only the fact that Doris had let me in which embarrassed
